Fred Thompson Rejects GOP's Pro-Life Platform Plank

posted by Curious George

Cybercast News Service
By Terence P. Jeffrey
CNSNews.com Editor in Chief
November 05, 2007

I wonder if Fred will now lie when he fills out this survey: CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE 2007 - 2008 This plank has been in our platform since 1976, forged by Ronald Reagan! Now we are having the platform built by Reagan dismantled by a the very person conservatives were told we could trust.

(CNSNews.com) - Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, now running for the Republican presidential nomination, said on Sunday he does not support the pro-life plank that has been included in the Republican National Platform since the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Thompson told host Tim Russert that he favors overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that took the issue of abortion away from the states by declaring abortion a constitutional right. Thompson said he wants to keep abortion legal at the state level.

"People ask me hypothetically, you know, OK, it goes back to the states," said Thompson. "Somebody comes up with a bill, and they say we're going to outlaw this, that, or the other. And my response was, I do not think it is a wise thing to criminalize young girls and perhaps their parents as aiders and abettors or perhaps their family physician. And that's what you're talking about. It's not a sense of the Senate. You're talking about potential criminal law."

If abortions are not "criminalized" even for doctors who are paid to perform them, they will remain legal.

The Republican National Platform has included language endorsing a human life amendment since 1976, the first presidential election following the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision.

Since 1984, the year President Ronald Reagan ran for re-election, each quadrennial Republican platform has included the same pro-life language, calling for both a human life amendment and for legislation making clear that the 14th Amendment, which includes the right to equal protection of the law, extends to unborn babies.

On "Meet the Press," Russert read Thompson the language of the Republican "pro-life" plank and asked Thompson to state his position on it.

"This," said Russert, "is the 2004 Republican Party platform, and here it is: 'We say the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution. We endorse legislation to make it clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children. Our purpose is to have legislative and judicial protection of that right against those who perform abortions.' Could you run as a candidate on that platform, promising a human life amendment banning all abortions?"

"No," said Thompson.

"You would not?" said Russert.

"No," said Thompson. "I have always -- and that's been my position the entire time I've been in politics. I thought Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. I think this platform originally came out as a response to particularly Roe v. Wade because of that.

"Before Roe v. Wade, states made those decisions. I think people ought to be free at state and local levels to make decisions that even Fred Thompson disagrees with. That's what freedom is all about. And I think the diversity we have among the states, the system of federalism we have where power is divided between the state and the federal government is, is, is -- serves us very, very well. I think that's true of abortion. I think Roe v. Wade hopefully one day will be overturned, and we can go back to the pre-Roe v. Wade days. But..."

"Each state would make their own abortion laws?" Russert asked.

"Yeah," said Thompson. "But, but, but to, to, to have an amendment compelling -- going back even further than pre-Roe v. Wade, to have a constitutional amendment to do that, I do not think would be the way to go."

Thompson told Russert that since he ran for the Senate in 1994, he has changed his mind about whether human life begins at conception.

Back then, he did not know the answer, he said. Now, especially in light of having seen the sonogram of his four-year-old child, he has changed his mind -- and now believes human life does begin at conception.

Still, he does not favor "criminalizing" the taking of a human life through abortion. Russert challenged him on the consistency of this position.

"So while you believe that life begins at conception, the taking of a human life?" said Russert.

"Yes, I, I, I, I do," said Thompson.

"You would allow abortion to be performed in states if chosen by states for people who think otherwise?" asked Russert.

"I do not think that you can have a, a, a law that would be effective and that would be the right thing to do, as I say, in terms of potentially -- you can't have a law that cuts off an age group or something like that, which potentially would take young, young girls in extreme situations and say, basically, we're going to put them in jail to do that. I just don't think that that's the right thing to do.

"It cannot change the way I feel about it morally -- but legally and practically, I've got to recognize that fact. It is a dilemma that I'm not totally comfortable with, but that's the best I can do in resolving it in my own mind," said Thompson.

Fred Thompson: Consistently Pro-Abortion

posted by Curious George


Check out Fred Thompson's Pro-Abortion Voting Record: National Right to Life Committee - Scroll down to Tennessee

In the 107th Congress, he tied with Harry Reid at 33% Pro-Life! In EVERY single year he was in the U.S. Senate, his voting record was one of the worst of the Republicans. Look it up!

The Arkansas Republican Assemblies Blog boasts that Fred Thompson is "consistent." Yup! He's consistently pro-abortion.

Fred Sawyer and Huckabee Finn

posted by Curious George

Ann Coulter stepped out there and slammed two presidential candidates today. They both deserved it. While her hyberbole may have been abit much in claiming that Huckabee and Thompson are just as liberal as Giuliani and Romney, she probably didn't go far enough in describing exactly how far both of Huckabee and Thompson fall short of being conservatives. I may end of voting for one or the other of them, but let's not kid ourselves. Neither is remotely close to being a "good" conservative.

Dear God, I wish someone would kick some sense into Mike Huckabee. For me his past could be his past if he wouldn't keep dragging it up on the doorstep like the half eaten and rotten rabbit entrails our cat keeps bringing back to me. His position on the SCHIP stuff is just one example of putrid ugliness that is best left in the bushes. I love our cat, but if she keeps bringing that dang rotten rabbit back, she is going to the pound.

Since I just blasted him, and since everyone in the Banana Republic of Arkansas already knows of the foolish positions taken by Mike Huckabee, and since I anticipate that every Fred Head Blog in the country will be posting the negative stuff about Huckabee, then I decided I would highlight what Ann Coulter said about Fred.

In 1999, Sen. Fred Thompson joined legal giants like Sens. Jim Jeffords, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to vote against removing Bill Clinton from office for perjury.

Thompson, whom President Nixon once called "dumb as hell," claimed to have carefully studied the Constitution and determined that perjury by the president of the United States did not constitute "high crimes and misdemeanors." He must have been looking at one of those living, breathing Constitutions we've heard so much about.

When the framers chose the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" for the Constitution, they were using a term taken from British parliamentary impeachments. There's a 600-year history of what this phrase means -- and Clinton met it about a dozen times before he gave a single statement under oath or suborned a single witness's testimony.

It has been used in this country and in Britain to remove one government official for making "uncivil addresses to a women," another for "notorious excesses and debaucheries" and another for "frequenting bawdy houses and consorting with harlots." Or, as Bill Clinton used to call it, "a three-day weekend."

The House didn't even impeach Clinton for his legion of "notorious excesses and debaucheries." He was impeached for excesses that also happen to be felonies. For a nation of laws, there are no more serious offenses than perjury and obstruction of justice.

The entire Supreme Court -- including the justices Clinton appointed -- boycotted Clinton's State of the Union address after his impeachment trial. That's what they thought of crimes that attack the legal system.

Rep. James Rogan lost his congressional seat because he stuck by his principles as a manager of Clinton's impeachment. Lifelong Democrat David Schippers abandoned his party's lockstep defense of Clinton to pursue Clinton's impeachment as the House Judiciary Committee's chief counsel. Rep. Henry Hyde saw an affair he had in 1965 become front-page news because he wouldn't waver from doing his job under the Constitution.

But, as The New York Times recently said, Thompson "agonized over what he saw as two 'bad choices.'"

What bad choices? Punishing a multiple felon or not punishing him? This wasn't exactly a job for King Solomon, pal.

The Times reported that calls from Thompson's Tennessee constituents showed that they "overwhelmingly favored removing President Bill Clinton from office." So Thompson could either: (1) Follow the Constitution and make his constituents happy or, (2) disregard the Constitution and make his Hollywood friends happy.

Only a handful of Republicans voted against all law and reason to keep Clinton in office, and only one of them was from Tennessee.

This isn't the time to be toying with any Republican who had a Clinton in his sights and ended up shooting himself in the foot. If you're bored with our top candidates, go see a slasher movie. Don't take it out on a presidential election

Maybe Ann should have just gone to a slasher movie than write this article, but I am glad she didn't. Way to go Ann. Let's keep conservatives accountable as conservatives. My only caution is to not equate a pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-homosexual, totalitarian, socialist to a pro-life, pro-gun, pro-family socialist or to a sometimes pro-life/pro-abortion, sometimes pro-gun/anti-gun, sometimes pro-family, sometimes socialist. There are differences. One has core values that are anathema to all things conservative, one has core values that are mostly conservative waxing sickeningly altruistic at times, the other two have no core values other than the current direction of the political wind.

No, Ann, they are not the same... there is only one of them (the four previously mentioned candidates) that you can count on to always do the right thing on half of the issues. He's also the only one who will always do what he thinks is right, even though I think he is dreadfully mistaken on issues of social welfare and collectivist altruism.

“Sumthin’ Wurth Thinkin ’Bout"

posted by Curious George

This is just too hilarious to pass up.



Here is something else worth thinking about: U.S. Public Service Academy

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, Governor of Arkansas, met with Chris Myers Asch while campaigning in Iowa. The two discussed the Academy, and Gov. Huckabee was enthusiastic in his support. “This is a great idea!” he exclaimed. “I wish I’d thought of it.” We are now working to secure his official endorsement.

What is up with these guys? Does any of them know what it means to be a conservative? I have had high hopes that Huckabee would abandon his liberal fiscal policy positions once he broke free of Little Rock. All he would have had to do was to promise his commitment to conservative fiscal policy. Even if he isn't a believer in economic conservatism, he is an honest man. I would have believed him. Too bad they all keep trying to force me to support the "Bircheresque Crank."

By the way, is that not the most lame attempt at creating a buzzword label you have ever seen? It appears to be coming out of the Fred Thompson camp. That is the very sort of thing that has turned me off of him. He doesn't stand on his own merits and is using an intense amount of dirty politics and backroom political assassinations. Not the way to win my support. The way to gain my support is to DEFEND AND PROMOTE CONSERVATIVE VALUES!